Stars Clustered Around
by glamaphonic
Summary: Drabble collection. #27: To Each Our Own Country - Spock cannot fade into a crowd. SpockUhura.
1. Plain Talk

**Author's Note:** I'm planning on doing a self-imposed drabblefest next month (one per day) and this is where I expect most to end up as the majority will probably be both Trek and Spock/Uhura. This first one is just practice tho.

* * *

**Plain Talk**

Spock fidgets as she perches on his thighs, her hand fluttering near the plane of his hip. His jaw clenches. Nyota's lips curve.

"Tell me what you want," she says gently.

He draws a breath and exhales a sigh.

"I fail to see the benefit of this experiment. You already possess exhaustive familiarity with my…proclivities."

"Yes, but you agreed. So say what you want."

She goes up on her knees, hands on her hips; she towers, astride him. Her hair slips around her slim, brown shoulders, imperfectly curtains her breasts.

"Closer," he manages around a lump in his throat.


	2. Infinite Diversity

**Author's Note:** Written by request for my LJ icon prompt meme. I'd forgotten about it until after I'd started this collection. I actually wrote it before Plain Talk.

* * *

**Infinite Diversity  
**

When Spock declines acceptance into the Vulcan Science Academy in order to attend Starfleet Academy, it is because he wishes for his achievements to stand on their merit. Nothing more than this and nothing less. The desire for acceptance would be an illogical motivation for such an action, to hope for same, beyond foolish.

Knowing this, Spock tells himself, is fortunate. It prevents surprise when his human peers are little more tolerant of his Vulcan aspects than his Vulcan peers were of his human ones.

They bare their teeth and trill when they insult him. This, at least, is novel.


	3. Normative

**Normative**

"I was simply under the impression that such observances were expected in many Terran cultures." The line of his mouth is tight. She follows the broad slope of his back as he turns to clear the table. "It is of no consequence."

Nyota places one hand, then the other, between his shoulder blades. She slides them around his chest. Her embrace does not impede his stacking of the dishes.

"I'm sure," she says, cheek against his spine. "Still, I promise never to forget our anniversary again."

He pauses. His hand slips over hers.

"That guarantee, while logically dubious, is appreciated."


	4. i heave a sigh of pain

**Author's Note:** Title and summary from "Flower" by Liz Phair.

* * *

**i heave a sigh of pain**

When he speaks, she stares. She doesn't hear his words so much as feel his voice roll across her skin.

She studies every minute change in his expression.

Across the room, he peers at her over the lectern. His eyes bore into hers.

"Do you have questions, Cadet Uhura?" Spock asks, a lilt of genuine curiosity marring the neutrality of his tone. She imagines he finds both her changing behavior and erratic performance inexplicable.

Nyota shifts in her seat, crosses her legs tightly, and shakes her head. His brow creases.

She knows better than this.

It doesn't change a thing.


	5. A Study

**A Study in the Development of Aggregate Preferences**

"I think you have a problem," Nyota gasps against his shoulder, resting her cheek in the crook of his neck. He kisses her sweat-damp skin once more, then raises his head.

"How so?"

"This is the third time today."

"I am aware."

"Spock, it's one o'clock in the afternoon."

His lips twitch downward, abashed.

"My natural inclination is to suppress desire. This would clearly be neither tenable or appropriate in our situation, but there are…unexpected challenges to merely regulating such feelings."

Nyota purses her lips and clenches her jaw, trying not to laugh.

His eyebrow quirks.

She fails.


	6. Every day's most quiet need

**Author's Note:** Title from Sonnet 43 ("How do I love thee?") by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

* * *

**Every day's most quiet need  
**

She searches her dresser longer than reasonable.

She's pulling on her boots, defeated, when he presents the golden hoop, held securely between thumb and index finger.

*

Each day, Nyota counts the ways.

*

The ship evens out. He pulls her to her feet.

*

The viewscreen flickers; the swirl of colors blinks out. Static pulses through her comm.

She rewrites half of the filtering algorithm in order to compensate for the nebula's interference.

Beside her, Spock silently observes.

*

He fits her to the curve of his body, face pressed against her neck.

He doesn't yet require sleep.

*

Each day, Nyota loses track.


	7. every time you pass me by

**Author's Note:** This is a companion piece to "i heave a sigh of pain" and is similarly titled from "Flower" by Liz Phair.

* * *

**every time you pass me by**

Cadet Uhura's work declines.

In conference, he explains errors she would never have made before. Her eyes rake across his body. He hears her heartbeat accelerate.

Spock considers that she might be seducing him. His blood thrums; a thrill runs, electric, down his spine.

This reaction is inappropriate.

He cannot divine her motivations. She is a woman of integrity—her ability to excel, without question. He is not desirable enough to warrant such behavior on his own merits.

She enters; he averts his eyes from her swaying hips. She sits and slides her assignment towards him.

Her fingertips brush his.


	8. Routine

**Routine**

In the early hours, Spock wakes with Nyota's limbs wound about him, her mumbled 'good morning' muffled by his chest.

He knows well the challenges inherent to this arrangement.

"Nyota." He strokes her hair.

"Don't," she commands.

"I must rise."

A plaintive noise, and her embrace tightens. Her foot rubs against his calf.

"The bed'll be cold."

"I begin to suspect that your affection for me is as a space heater and not a mate."

"Baby, don't underestimate your charms," she chides. "It's at least fifty-fifty."

He traces her smile with his thumb. She kisses his palm. He relents.


	9. The First Night

**The First Night**

"Would you see anything I don't want you to see?"

Spock flinches at the anxiety drawn between her brows. It does not show on his face.

"Every mind and connection is unique. I would need to acclimate myself, but even in humans mental shielding is a natural impulse. I would respect any boundaries as soon as I was able."

"So, it's a question of trust."

"Absolute and intimate."

Nyota is silent.

This rejection is not representative. He is still pained by it.

"I apologize. It was imprudent of me to-"

"No." She pulls his hand to her face. "I'm ready."


	10. Green

**Green**

"It's just something people do. By rote, mostly."

"The absence of genuine interest merely renders it more illogical."

She lifts her head from his chest.

"Wait, that's what this was about?"

Spock's sudden inclination towards an 'evening in'—the way he entwined their fingers as they left the officer's lounge—is recontextualized.

His hand, warm and heavy on her back, pauses mid-caress.

"They are aware of our bond. It is inappropriate." It's not an admission, but it's enough.

"You're actually _jealous_!"

His nose scrunches in indignation. "I have no reason to be so."

"You should keep that in mind."


	11. Delineation

**Author's Note:** Follows "i heave a sigh of pain" and "every time you pass me by."

* * *

**Delineation**

Tutoring intersects with meals. Her work returns to its standard, though academia is an increasingly rare topic.

They discuss music and culture, philosophy and science.

He speaks on the scorching heat of Shi'Khar. She describes the humidity of Mombasa.

San Francisco is inclement.

Her distraction and obvious discomfort in class reduces. She smiles at him across his kitchen table and he can no longer deny the shifting paradigm.

"This is not solely professional or platonic." It hovers between question and declaration.

She leans towards him, peers at him through her lashes. Her hand is a brisk wind on his cheek.


	12. Summation

**Author's Note:** Companion to "Delineation."

* * *

**Summation**

Nyota should feel different in his presence. They are something she would never have imagined doing until she did.

Instead, she feels more like herself when she's with him.

Nyota talks with her hands. Spock smiles with his eyes. He doesn't always understand, but he _listens_. She extends the same rare courtesy.

Sometimes, he studies her, for long, quiet moments as his gaze sweeps over her skin, then meets her eyes.

She wants him to unravel her, with word and touch, until the disparate parts that make her up are laid bare.

She knows that he would count them all.


	13. This Is Not A Euphemism

**This Is Not A Euphemism**

"Well?" The tip of Nyota's tongue peeks out from the corner of her mouth as she regards the room. She tilts her head.

"It is superior to the previous arrangement, but no better or worse than the two prior to that," Spock answers honestly.

"You're not just tired of moving furniture?"

She shifts and her arm brushes his.

"While there are various activities in which I would much prefer to engage at this juncture, my evaluation is genuine."

"I think…the armchair where it was before," she declares.

He raises an eyebrow. She swats his backside as he passes her.


	14. Cut Through the Gravity

**Author's Note:** Follows "Delineation" and "Summation." Title from "The Sun" by Mirah.

* * *

**Cut Through the Gravity**

It isn't planned. His embrace tightens; their gentle kiss goodbye is chased from her mind by the hot crush of his mouth.

When they part, his forehead touches hers. His fingertips are soft against the nape of her neck.

"Nyota." Her name sounds like a whispered prayer, but it's a question.

She answers with the press of her hips into his.

Later, the path through his apartment is a blur.

All she knows is fulfillment--his waist against her thighs, ankles locked at the small of his back, her hands in his hair.

Above her, he blazes like the sun.


	15. Catalysis

**Catalysis**

Their schedules coincide more often than contradict. Spock finds this does not inure him to her presence.

"What?" she asks, noticing his gaze on her.

"A highly imprecise query."

"What are you looking at?" Nyota's eyes do not leave her padd.

"That is self-evident."

He is rewarded with a smirk, but still no eye contact. "_Why_ are you looking at me?"

"That too-"

"Spock."

She rests her padd between them on the couch.

"You are beautiful," he declares.

"That's it?"

"Is more required?"

"You're incorrigible." She winds her arms around his neck, drops kisses along his jaw.

Spock exhales.


	16. Never and Always

**Author's Note:** Companion to "Cut Through the Gravity."

* * *

**Never and Always**

It is not his Time. Still he burns for her.

It is enlivening, consumptive, terrifying.

Her fingers card through his hair and her mouth presses against his shoulder.

Lights explode in front of his eyes.

Previously, he has been able to separate himself, but this bears little resemblance to controlled bouts of experimentation--feelings to be examined, meditated upon, and subsumed later.

He lies with his head against her breast, panting, and listens to her slowing heartbeat.

She strokes his forehead, his jaw, with cool fingers. Any contact with his psi points is incidental.

He is marked all the same.


	17. This Desperate Wish

**Author's Note:** Title from "(I've Got A) Right to Cry" by Shearwater.

* * *

**This Desperate Wish**

Nyota finds him on the observation deck.

The _Enterprise_ isn't the only thing running on empty—she wants to curl up and sleep for a year—but he needs her more than she needs rest.

Spock stands, tall and still, gazing out into the darkness. Nyota doubts that's what he's actually seeing.

Neither of them speaks.

He follows her movement with his eyes as she wraps her arms around him. His posture softens and his arms encircle her; he buries his face in her shoulder.

His breathing is heavy, shaky gusts against her neck.

He trembles. She holds him tighter.


	18. Taking a Break

**Taking a Break**

Music floats out from every direction in the pavilion, filling the air. Spock finds the effect pleasant.

Nyota's laughter peals as one of their hosts instructs her in a traditional dance. Her smile is still bright when she leaves her companion to cross the room.

She beams down at Spock where he sits, then bends at the waist before extending her hand.

His hesitation is short.

Nyota leads him to the center of the floor and pulls him closer. She rests her cheek against his chest and tucks her head under his chin.

Together, they sway sedately, in perfect time.


	19. The Woman Who Came to Dinner

**The Woman Who Came to Dinner**

The blazing sun that beams down on the colony is a respite from the ever-chilly corridors of the _Enterprise_. Nyota tugs irritably at her collar anyway.

"You are agitated." Spock's eyes are soft.

"I'm nervous," she corrects.

Lying to him is pointless.

"You have met my father previously," he reminds her.

She clenches and unclenches her fists, smoothes down her perfectly pressed uniform.

"Not like this, I haven't," she says.

His gaze hold hers as they walk. Her shoulder brushes his arm. Austere, implacable faces turn to observe them, then turn away—calculated and sharp.

He takes her hand.


	20. Blessing

**Author's Note:** Immediately follows The Woman Who Came to Dinner.

* * *

**Blessing**

They sit beside each other without touching, Nyota's hands on her knees.

Sarek studies Spock, then her.

The room still seems to echo with the graceful tones of Spock's Formal Vulcan--words carefully selected to describe their relationship to best and most accurate effect; a touch of nearly archaic High Vulcan to describe her: _she who is half of my heart_.

Sarek's face is stony, too unfamiliar to be readable.

"It is_…fathomable,_" he declares, finally.

The complexity of the actual word's connotation defies direct translation; the tension around Spock's mouth relaxes. _Not illogical_ is the rough summation. It's enough..


	21. A Distant Memory Of

**Author's Note:** Takes place in the A Compass Wouldn't Help at All universe. Title from "Two-Part Harmony" by Robert Skoro.

* * *

**A Distant Memory Of**

Nyota knows him immediately. His posture is different from her Spock—spine bent under the weight of the years—but his age does nothing to obscure the familiarity of his profile.

When she approaches, recognition lights his face as well.

"It really is you," she says for want of something better.

It's unbelievable, overwhelming, and she reaches towards him. She stops short when his hands remain clasped behind his back.

Bemusement flashes in his eyes and, instantly, she understands.

"Lieutenant Uhura," he acknowledges softly. His tone is sentimental and fondly affectionate.

Nyota holds her hands at her sides and nods.


	22. Through the Open Door

**Author's Note:** This is informed by many things, but primarily Rain Shadow by **trisfic at LJ** and ponderations on Vulcan fashion and how it intersects with their cultural moorings, in general.

* * *

**Through the Open Door**

The dress is softer than Nyota expects, though still binding. Behind her, Spock looks almost strange in layers and demure tones instead of primary colors and crisply tailored lines.

The high grey collar accents the flare of russet fabric circling her shoulders. She feels like she's peeking out from the center of a flower blossom.

There's a matching cap made just for her; it fits snugly over her ears.

Nyota studies herself in the mirror before pulling it off.

"A superior aesthetic," Spock says and hands her a pair of silver earrings.

Outside, they catch the sun, shine like beacons.


	23. Serenity

**Serenity**

Spock's calculations are without flaw: an 86% chance that Nyota would be requested for this mission, a 52.2% increase in the likelihood of a positive outcome due to away party composition, but a 39% chance that she and the rest will perish now that violence has erupted anyway.

Logic is not always a refuge.

He grips the arms of the captain's chair. The bridge is nearly silent as the moment stretches.

"I've got them, sir!" Mr. Scott's voice cracks over the comm.

Spock is on his feet, in the corridor, on the turbolift, before he has a chance to exhale.


	24. The Universal Language

**Author's Note:** I've never met a high school AU I didn't like.

* * *

**The Universal Language**

Spock attends the International Pre-Collegiate Mathletics Summer Summit to work.

He soon accepts that he's alone in this.

Even Pavel has abandoned him to socialization, lured by Jim's insistence that he's "better than a puppy."

Resigned to intellectual solitude, Spock starts at the squeak of markers against his station's whiteboard.

"This is the only table not drowned in hormones," the girl says as he stares. No further explanation follows.

Her ponytail swings near the center of her back as she writes, small, brown hands sweeping through a logarithmic differentiation.

"Fine," he hears himself say.

His mouth has gone dry.


	25. Familiarity

**Author's Note:** Immediately follows "Never and Always."

* * *

**Familiarity**

Spock's hair is mussed and his expression loose—indolent and sated. It's surreal, but far from unwelcome.

Nyota wanders his small bedroom, his nightshirt hanging to her thighs.

"Are you searching for something?" he asks.

"I'm just…acclimating myself to this."

"The decor of my bedroom?"

She grins, lets her eyes run across his shoulders and bare chest, down to where the sheet is slung low on his narrow hips.

"I see," Spock says. "In that case, I believe that repeated trials would be most efficacious."

She approaches. He tumbles her into the bed with warm hands at her waist.


	26. Extracurricular

**Author's Note:** Continued from "The Universal Language."

* * *

**Extracurricular**

It's thirty minutes before Jim descends, eyebrows waggling, and insinuates himself between Nyota and the whiteboard. Her marker stops just before leaving a pi sign on his FEDERATION HIGH MATHLETICS ALL-STAR letterman jacket.

"Hey there," he says, teeth flashing.

Spock's stomach clenches unpleasantly, but Nyota just rolls her eyes and immediately turns to gather her problem booklets.

"I'll see you later, Spock." She smiles, bright and genuine. His encroaching disappointment eases.

Jim sidles up next to Spock as they watch her walk away.

"'Solely for academic enrichment'?" Jim asks smugly.

"I have no idea what you mean," Spock lies.


	27. To Each Our Own Country

**Author's Note:** Title from "Country of the Future" by Mirah. This is the end of the road for the great November Drabblefest 2009! Thanks for coming along for the ride with me, everyone! I am going to go write a bunch of really long fic now.

* * *

**To Each Our Own Country**

When possible, they go away from the Academy, the Presidio. They sit across from each other on a transport to Berkeley. Nyota leans close as they talk in quiet tones.

They have curry in a tiny restaurant where the air is thick with spices and wander used bookstores. Nyota reads aloud from their selections as they sit outside of the only cafe they've found with authentic Vulcan tea blends.

Spock cannot fade into a crowd. Nor can she, when she's with him. She's never wanted to.

Nyota ignores questioning looks and rests her head against Spock's shoulder as they stroll.


End file.
